1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for generating test data for a listing program, a listing program generation apparatus, and a storage medium storing a program for generating test data for a listing program.
2. Description of the Related Art
The procedure of generating a listing program for outputting a listing, etc. is:
(1) setting an output item;
(2) determining the design of a report (listing);
(3) generating test data for confirming an output result of a report
(4) verifying each function using test data
(5) generating an extracting logic of actual data
Layout images can be different between the state of the design of a report and the state of the actual input of test data. Therefore, to obtain a well-designed report, it is necessary to determine the final design while determining the design of the above described items (1) through (4), generating test data, and repeating the verification of functions.
If the amount of data in a detail unit about items, numbers, etc. in a listing becomes larger than a predetermined value when a listing is printed, it is necessary to generate test data consistent among a plurality of tables generated in a system, and capable of being verified under various conditions to verify the function of automatically feeding a page, the function of aggregating data in item units, or an output result of a related listing, for example, to verify the consistency, etc. of an output of each listing when an aggregation result of specific items in a listing and an aggregation result of other items of another listing are collectively output to a further listing. In such a case, the time taken in generating test data has occupied a large share in the total time required to develop a listing program.
The present invention aims at easily generating test data with which the function of a listing realized by a listing program, and an output result of a plurality of listings can be verified with consistency.
The present invention generates test data for each item of a listing, generates listing item information for defining an item of a target listing, and test data for use in verifying an output of a listing after combining the test data of different items defined according to the listing item information.
Since test data for use in verifying an output of each item in a listing can be easily generated based on the test data for each item and the listing item information according to the present invention, the load of generating test data when a listing program is prepared can be reduced. In addition, since various patterns of test data can be automatically generated by, for example, setting the number of occurrences of the test data, the test data for use in verifying the function of feeding a page in a listing, aggregating data for each item, etc. can be easily generated. Furthermore, since test data consistent among a plurality of listings can be used, a plurality of related listings can be verified under the same condition.